General...
Brush Burner! Howdy
,Well last month guess I was kinda on a soap box preachin’ and wavin’ the flag. Think that’s good for the soul, and am glad to see ol’ Lew (Horseback columnist Lew Pewterbaugh) leading the band. Thanks again Lew for your patriotism and what I like to call the “brutal truth”. Guess I better get back to the Brazos bottom. My part of the bottom is still suffering from the drought of 2011. Dead trees are still standing and falling and giving our fences a hard time. Spent almost all week in a pasture down on the creek shredding weeds and cleaning up around the cattle pens. By Friday just after lunch things were looking pretty good. Just a few more things to do, which can be done Monday morning, when I come to get the tractor and shredder. Sometime over the weekend the neighbor’s dead trees fell over our fence, and the fence was down enough for the yearlin’s to get out. Bad thing about big dead trees, can’t just walk up and lift or pull them off the fence. Typically the tree has to be cut in sections, and carefully gotten off the fence. Naturally some fence work is going to have to be done after the tree is removed. Better get the tree removed and the fence fixed in one day ‘cause a hole left in the fence overnight means cattle out next morning. Years ago wrote about using temporary, plastic fencing in these
54 HORSEBACK MAGAZINE - July 2013
situations and I practice what I preach. Keep a 100 feet roll plus some smaller pieces in the barn all the time for short term patches until the fence can be properly repaired. Like to do some brush clearing every winter while the leaves are off the woody plants, weather permitting. Some years are just too wet in winter to get much clearing done. Not so during 2011- 12 and 2012-13. After the brush is removed we push it into big piles for burning. After a couple of months of drying, and hopefully after a spring shower, and on a day of light wind, it is time to burn. Now before you start, make a call to the fire department servicing your area. Check to see if a “burn ban” is in effect, or if any other restrictions affect your location. Leave the department your name, location of the fire, and phone number, burn date, and time of day. I am talking about burning brush, not garbage or trash. After burning, our sites are disk and cross disk, leveled, and go back to pasture. Potassium or “potash” is an essential plant nutrient, and can be returned to the soil from burn sites. The spooky thing about burning brush is getting it lit, safely. First, start on the upwind
side, so the fire will blow into the pile. Secondly, use the right starter. My preference is a mixture of 75% diesel fuel and 25% gasoline. After mixing, like to soak a roll of toilet tissue in a one gallon vegetable can. Fill the can half full of starter and soak the toilet tissue overnight. To start the brush pile fire, place the soaked tissue under the brush. Thirdly, to light, use long matches made for fireplaces, or make a match fire lighter from rolled up newspaper. Charcoal lighter is also good as well as kerosene to help get the fire lit. Please under any circumstance, do not use just gasoline. To light the big fireplace at the ranch when I was growing up, used corn cobs soaked in kerosene or “coal oil” as called in those days. Well not many corn cobs or coal oil around anymore so try the gas/diesel mix, but be careful. Roll of toilet tissue soaked in the mixture will burn long enough to get even a damp brush pile goin’.
Happy Trails!
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